As is customary for many
players I know, a year in review seems to occur around this time. Most of
us go through a reflection of what went right and what went wrong with our
gaming experiences and we tally up our wins versus our losses and prepare
ourselves for a new beginning of play time at the tables.

As many of you know, I
often contribute a written piece to the Dice Coach website,
www.dicecoach.com. There is a short piece I
wrote for my small corner of his site quite a few years ago that amazingly
still holds true about how I feel about the game at the end of this year.
I thought I would share it again here as the words are timeless and
appropriate. Here it is:

Ending the Year on a Positive Note!

As
we approach the end of the year, it's a great time to reflect on our
blessings and renew our faith in the human spirit. We focus on our loved
ones, our friends and acquaintances, rekindling old relationships with
some and forging stronger bonds with others. It is a time of rebirth, a
time for knowing that if we believe the best in people, surely the best
will come out in us as well.

This is also a good time to re-evaluate our goals for our dice play.
Taking a moment to examine our accomplishments, to scrutinize our play
and how well we have connected with this game. What went right, and what
went wrong should be the question we ask ourselves. What did we gain, or
rather, what did we do with what we lost or gained.

With all this in mind, here are my thoughts about my year of dice play.

Play with heart. Play like you really love the game, even when
you experience a loss. I learn more about a player's character by how he
or she behaves when they lose. Honor the experience; win or lose.

Care for your fellow players. A good player remembers what it was
like to be a novice player. I believe if we are to keep this game alive,
we have a responsibility to help the players who come after us. Let's
not forget our beginnings. We should encourage each other rather than
criticize.

Risk gaining, even when it might be scary. Do what scares you the
most. Then push your capabilities, always striving for the next level.
Go from the known - toward the unknown for the betterment of your game.

Dream of other ways to win at this game. Even when others find
your approach impractical or uncomfortable, always look forward to
benefit yourself. Too often we underestimate our power to dream and our
ability to accomplish what we dream.

Expect to win. Know, love and believe in what you do and
everything will fall into place. Expect the best for yourself! It's a
positive thing!

Sadly, our community is
full of players who want to blame their playmates, their coach, the book
they read, the casino environment, the dice, the chips, the noise, their
spouse their experiences or past issues for their present state of affairs
in their gaming world.

To those I say, “stop.”
You are cheating yourself of your power to be a winning player. This
illusion is the greatest thief of a player’s power. When a player buys
into their excuses it is a grave error should they truly wish to win big
in the casino.

This is the time when
many reflect back and review what kind of year they experienced. My wish
for you is that you step up and claim your results without telling
yourself stories or excuses. The greatest players I know never explain or
complain about their results. Instead, when I have seen them experience
less than stellar results at the tables, they say, “I created that,”
nothing more and nothing less. They learn and go on.

If you found yourself
with a less than expected result for the year, please do claim it, learn
from it, be grateful for it and move on. Do not beat yourself up, harbor
guilt, regret your decisions because it is simply wasted energy. Let this
go. Maintain the idea that everything that occurred is as it should have
occurred. After all, you created it!

A few things to remember
in 2008:

Dice influencing means
exerting conscious control over the course of your dice roll. Dice
influence does not work in isolation. It is part of your whole game. It
works in synergy with all the other aspects of your game.

The power to influence
the dice is meaningless until a player realizes that discipline and
practical application is required. Take action and take responsibility.

Recognize that the true
battle in your pursuit to gain prosperity through the game of craps has
nothing to do with exterior forces or anything outside of you. Your most
formidable opponent in the game of craps is not the casino with its
personnel, environment and distractions. The battle lies within you not
outside of you. Focus on the internal influences of your game not the
external ones.

With that stated, may
the game help you learn who you truly are. Make what matters this year
YOU. This year is all about who you are and how you experience your game.
I know it is for me.

Peace and Prosperity
to All!!

Soft Touch

PS If you have any suggestions for the
new dicesetter.com website or newsletter please send them to me at Ed@dicesetter.com
and I'll have a look and see how we can incorporate them into our future plans.

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If you have not seen “The Cooler”, and
you would like a visual of applied metaphysics at work, I recommend this movie. “The
Cooler” stars William H. Macy, Maria Bello and Academy Award Nominee, Alec
Baldwin. In short, it’s a Las Vegas love story. Bernie Lootz, played by Macy, is
“The Cooler”.

Bernie Lootz is a loser. Even his name says
loser. He lost so much to the Shangri-La Casino that he becomes an indentured
employee to cover his marker. Bernie’s job? Well, he’s the guy that goes to a
hot table and cools it off for the casino. In the movie, the early scenes
clearly depict many examples of how metaphysics can express an influence in a
game.

Everything about Bernie exudes a losing energy
from his low life self-esteem, to the thin walled dump he calls home, and even to never having cream for his coffee. Every time Bernie gets the call to
cool a game, after he shows up, the game breaks down like magic. The winning streak comes to an
abrupt end. The winner continues to play until becoming a loser. Bernie calmly
walks back to the bar to finish his cold coffee less the cream. And so it goes for
Bernie, his role in life is cooling off hot games for the Shangri-La casino
until hisdebt is paid
.

I cannot say that I have ever been in a game
with a house cooler. However, I have been in loads of great games, craps and
twenty-one, when the casino personal interceded to do whatever they could to
break up the game, like changing out the dice or cards, a chip fill or count up
in the middle of a hand, or to bring in a house dealer on the twenty-one table
that pitched cards with the speed of a train in the night.

So, how did Bernie "The Cooler" do his work? His
appearance in the game caused a shift in the energy. With his presence, he
interrupted winning energy with his loser’s energy. Bernie held a belief that he
was a loser. His poor self image was so strong, it was over whelming. Even other
players seemed to notice it. Losing and cooling a game was Bernie’s ill fated
talent. His belief in his losing ways was so strong, when he entered a game,
there was no way the casino could lose.

Innocently enough, some players are coolers.
These individuals may come into your winning game, and end a good thing. How is
this possible? It
is like viewing a reflection in a still pool. Suddenly someone comes along and
rudely splashes a stone into the pool. The reflection is destroyed. The game
falls apart with the confusion of ripples distorting the reflection. It is not
caused by an intention to wreck the game. It really is more like a disruption in
the energy, just like a still pool is “splashed” by a stone. There seems to be a
delicate balance to any game. All it takes is the Cooler to come a long to have
it all slide away.

This is why you need the awareness to “pick your
playmates”. Not everyone playing the game is a knowledgeable and a skilled
player. Not everyone playing has a positive attitude for winning. So, some
players are like Bernie Lootz, they simply can’t help but lose and bring down a
game. They expect to lose. It is their own self image creating their losing reality.

It is not about a person’s luck, good or bad. It
has to do with the energy resonating within the belief system of that person.
Some people have an expanding energy and consistently succeed in their life.
Others live life in energy of contraction and scarcity, and they consistently fail. When you change your energy, you change reality. Changing your
energy has to do with how you view life, your beliefs, your dogma or your
paradigm for living. See how it works out for Bernie in "The Cooler". This is just
one of the reasons my classroom for teaching spirituality and metaphysics
happens in the glitzy atmosphere of a casino. When it comes to learning about
energy, emotion and life lessons, it’s all happening in a casino 24/7.

Dear Queen Bee, recently I saw a show on TV about cheats in
Las Vegas. One segment showed how unsuspecting craps players can have the chips
ripped off by a cheat playing next to them. Has this ever happened to you?
Howard P.

Dear Howard, I do not believe that I have ever been
attacked by a "Rail Rat". I am sure that what you saw on television does occur
in most any casino. Here are the things I do when I play craps to protect my
chips.

I buy in for an exact amount. I watch as the cheques
are cut out of the stacks. I watch as the dealer present the cheques in
front of me and I recount the cheques once I have them in the front rail.

I keep the cheques in the front rail. This keeps them
in my peripheral vision. I use the back rail to track the box numbers rolled
during any hand.

I use separators between different denominations. At
a glance, I can look down and see how much money I have in cheques... plus I
know what I have in action on the layout.

I always keep my hands to either side of my chips
except for betting.

I am particular about who I play next to and alert
when a new player joins the game... next to me or otherwise.

I usually play with a partner. If I need to take a
break, I let the dealer know and simply ask him to look after my cheques,
"I'll be right back!", I also let my partner know that I am leaving the
game. They know to keep an eye on my cheques. The dealer lets the floor
person know that I am leaving the game and the floor person covers the
cheques with a cloth or sometimes a plastic hood until I return.

When I am playing craps, I am enjoying myself and at
no time I am unaware of all that is going on around me and my money.

Thank you Howard for taking time to write to me,

Queen Bee

Chip or Cheque?

By the way my dear readers, chips and cheques although
commonly referred to as being the same thing are not, exactly. A cheque is
a casino token bearing a specified value, like $25. You play with cheques
when you play craps. The tokens used in roulette have different colors
without bearing a specified amount printed on the token. The value of the
token is declared by the dealer. So, chips have no value until declared by
the house.

I get this question frequently, how much money
do you take to Las Vegas?

My answer is not your answer. There are numerous
factors to consider when it comes to gambling and bankroll. Each player must be
honest with themselves answering a few basic but important questions.

1.How much money do I have to risk?

2.How comfortable I am losing that
much money?

3.What is my minimum bet?

4.How long (number of days) will I
be playing?

5.How many games, (craps, blackjack,
poker) will I play?

6.How many sessions per day will be
played?

Here is a rule of thumb for a weekend trip to
Las Vegas, playing three days. Take five times the amount of one buy-in for each
game you intend to play. Figure a minimum of 30 times the minimum bet per
buy-in.

Example: A blackjack player betting $10 minimum
bet would buy-in for $300 and have a total trip bankroll of $1,500.

Example: A craps player betting $10 minimum bet
would have $300 for each bet they intend to make in the craps game. Craps is a
bit more costly in the front end as each bet should be financed properly with
its own money. A player with a pass line bet and placing betting the 6 and 8
should have a buy-in of $900. I would make it $1,000 even. The craps player with
a $5,000 trip bankroll could be financially backed for three days of craps
making three bets.

I can hear critics saying that this is too much
or not enough money. I say it is a conservative amount that will provide a
skilled player with enough financial clout to have a fair go at the game. If
it works out and you win, there is no problem. If something bad happens, the
loss is limited to an amount that was adequate for playing and palatable if
losing and you should still have back-up money to continue to play a later
session. Following a loss, it is not advised to continue to play without a break
and reflection time.

Dice
Setter.com Newsletter™ is published by DiceSetter.com. It is
intended to be informational and entertaining. Do not consider the
information a guarantee for supplementing or replacing income. Casino games
are adult entertainment, games to be played and enjoyed. It is the intention
of the publisher to provide information so the reader may play with more
enjoyment. Opinions expressed by the contributing authors are not
necessarily shared or endorsed by the publisher. Winning is a goal and not a
guarantee.